VIP!

Yes.  It's official.  I'll be attending Kamelot's performance with Delain and Eklipse.  And I will be VIP.

I might feel a little girlish for being excited about my VIP ticket, but Fearless leader is just as excited as I am with his own VIP tickets...

It's like getting published!

Thank you, Fearless Leader!

I learned this morning that we have been selected to be included on the ProgPower 2013 compilation CD.
http://www.progpowerusa.com/index.html

What a fantastic way to start the morning!

Will you be there?

Losing Time

So, I was hanging out in the studio and laying down some vocal tracks with Fearless Leader.  He was trying to refine the timing on a section I was trying to sing.  I could tell he was getting a little frustrated.  I just wasn’t producing the track that he wanted.  It was ever so slightly off.  So, we turned on the click track!  How can you miss the timing when you have a metronome tapping the top of your head?

Seriously, that is what the click track feels like in the vocal booth.  Back into the vocal booth I go!  Well, actually, I hadn’t left the booth yet, so I guess it was “so, in the vocal booth I remained.”

Again, and again, we tried to get it right.  Then, I was ready to come in on my cue, and the click track sped up!  It was as if it skipped a beat!  Things just unraveled from there.  The light-headedness never really went away...

We decided to take a break.  I sat next to the freshly opened window with a fan on me.  I started feeling a little more normal.  I just could not wrap my brain around the entire scenario.  I never made it back into the vocal booth…

Upon reflection, I think I was suffering from a little bit of oxygen deprivation.  The vocal booth is not well ventilated (that might let in extra noise we don’t want), and I *was* singing…  Have you heard of Soprano high?

I’m not doing THAT

You’ve said it, too, haven’t you?

I was watching some live performances on Youtube with Fearless Leader.  Suddenly, the singer just bends over and flings her hair up and down in traditional head banging fashion.  I have never been inspired to move in such a manner.  I looked at Fearless Leader and said those fateful words.  He smirked at me and replied, “Oh, yes, you will.  You’ll get caught up in the moment and you will.”

Fast forward.  My vocal coach had recommended that I sing in front of a mirror.  Now, sometimes, I deliberately stand in front of the mirror, analyzing every little thing as I warm up and sing.  Other times, I’m just rocking out with the music as I cook or clean or whatever.  During those episodes, I peek at the mirror occasionally to see if anything looks amiss.  Sometimes I see things that need fixed.  Sometimes I take a moment to sing to my reflection and work on a little bit of stage presence.  And, sometimes I totally forget that a mirror is there and jump because, out of the corner of my eye, it looks like someone is coming out of the hallway into my space!

Understand I have played in the orchestra.  I have sung with the choir.  I get into the music and nod my head, or even nod my entire body!  I understand that the heavier the beat, the more one is likely to move.  I really do get it.

Anyway, I’m rocking out to some Within Temptation…  I’m unpacking groceries and putting them away, or sorting out what I need to make dinner…  Cats are watching with rapt attention…  And what did I see?  Someone in the hallway just did a full-out head banging thing!  It was only for one beat.  Did I really just do that?

Fearless Leader thinks I’m coming over to the dark side...  What makes him think I haven’t already been well on my way?

Audition

Have you ever walked into an audition with absolutely no idea how it might go?  I did.

I’m exploring my “rock voice.”  I’ve explored my “country voice” to the limits and back again.  I'm very comfortable with it.  I’ve trained my “theater voice”, and I continue to train the limits of my vocal range in both directions.

I auditioned with a band.  They have a set of music they want to perform and seek a vocalist that can deliver.  I have no idea if I am that vocalist, but it is yet another opportunity to explore and train more of my “rock voice.”  I learned three songs that were  released before I was born.  I’d never heard them in my life.  I showed up to sing them as well as I could.  One of these songs was 10 minutes long!  I can’t come in where I am supposed to if my life depends on it…

It’s funny.  You can listen to a song for several weeks and think that you know it.  You sing along with it on the radio (or mp3 player, or whatever).  Then, you try to perform it and realize you were just kidding yourself.

So, three hard rock songs.  Released before I was born.  Performed my male artists.  It was definitely an experiement!  It could have gone worse...  I saw the band members rocking out while we sang.  I saw smiles.  I saw some winces, but I got the impression that those were all self directed.  Lord knows, I winced myself many times...

When it comes to putting myself out there, this has to be the most vulnerable audition I've ever had!

It's like... well...

Do you remember when you discovered The Phantom of the Opera?

I’m talking Andrew Lloyd Weber, Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, and all the rest.  Perhaps that discovery was just a generational thing…

I remember.  I think I was a freshman in high school.  I don’t recall exactly what my first exposure was.  It might have been the excerpts we played in symphonic orchestra.  It might have been tidbits in the choir.  Eventually, I laid hands on the ENTIRE SOUNDTRACK!  I remember how the music resonated in my soul!  I remember how I wanted to be able to sing every note of each part.  I knew the soundtrack word for word.  I knew the timing.  I could pick out any of four parts going at the same time, all following a different musical tangent and combining to form a chaotic and frenzied whole that crashed to a dramatic climax!  I couldn’t just start wherever in the middle somewhere.  I mean, I could, but I desired the full experience.  I would start at the beginning of the first tape and make sure I had a full couple of hours to listen all the way through to the end.  I felt driven to listen to it over and over again.  The music MOVED me!

OK.  Fast forward.

Let’s not talk about how many years later it is now.

I have moved through all sorts of music in the interim.  I stumbled close to a particular genre when I ventured into listening to Evanescence.  Perhaps they were merely a gateway band?  Fearless Leader recruited me for a recording project.  I loved it.  Then, Fearless Leader recruited me for a full time singing position!  I’m beyond flattered, and thrilled.  He sends some music my way.  I eat it up.  He sends some more music my way.  I eat that up, too.  I find more music on my own, and I’m really digging it.

I quietly delighted in the Kamelot/Nightwish Concert at the end of September 2012.

Finally, the Silverthorn album is available in the United States, and I download it.  I listen to it once through, and import it into my Kamelot playlist.  I’d play the list on ‘shuffle’ and one of the new songs would randomly pop up from time to time.  But these new songs were different…

Whatever I was doing, I had to stop and savor the sound when one of these new songs popped up.  Once it was over and we moved onto something else, I felt a little emptier.  What was going on?

Aside:  I’m a Virgo.  I have to analyze EVERYTHING.  Why do I like this?  Why don’t I like this?  Why does this work?  Why does this not work?  What makes ‘this’ different from ‘that’?  How?  What?  Why?
You get the idea.

Back to the playlist.  The music is DARK.  I love it.  It resonates with me.  But Kamelot has always made dark music!  What’s the big deal?  Unable to take the emptiness, I pull up the Silverthorn album and play it from beginning to end.  The story is complete.  I can now move on.  Um, not so fast.  EMPTY!!!

“FINE!”  I shout to my soul.  “There you go!”
I set the album to ‘repeat all’.  Soul is now sitting back and nestling into its place the way one nestles into a cozy chair in front of a fire with a good book.  Lost in the story.  Lost in the music.  Lost in the DARKNESS.

Aside:  I **LOVE** dark music.

I have not felt this sort of musical obsession pull since my personal discovery of Phantom of the Opera.  Les Miserables came close.  Rent was catchy, as well.  And, of course, there was my general introduction to the world of Symphonic metal…

Thank you, Kamelot, for this musical ecstasy experience.  More, please?

Meet F#

F# is the current ‘bane of my existence’.  It’s not that I bear any particular ill will toward F# in general.  I play violin!  I actually prefer F# to F-natural!  However, this F# happens to be the second one above middle C.

I thought that E was my biggest challenge.  I brought it to my vocal coach, saying “Is this just plain out of my range?  Is it an interval thing?  Should I just scrap it altogether?”  After some analysis, she came back with “It’s just waaaay up there.  You really can’t belt that out, it’s completely head voice.”  We got down to work, and it has become a little better.  Don’t be fooled, though.  There is plenty more work to be done on it.

So, along comes F-natural.  I find that it is somewhat hit-and-miss.  Perhaps I’m not warm enough, or maybe I’m not loose enough.  Tension is a problem with me.  Maybe I’m just not making the face!

Aside:  It’s a real thing.  I stand in front of my coach, and she says, “I suspect that this can be more extreme.  It isn’t supposed to be pretty.  Offend me!”  So, I make the face.  It isn’t pretty.  The sound is offensive.  But it gets EASY!  Because there are physiological changes that happen by engaging those muscles!  My stage performance may get interesting…

More aside:  We talk about extremes a lot.  In the end, we usually want a happy medium, and I tend to find that happy medium by exploring the extremes.  I can’t remember exactly what we were doing, but my coach said that my “Ah” was sounding a little too open, and she wanted to hear me flatten it out more so that it became more of an “a” (like ‘cat’) and less like “o” (as in ‘calm’).  Let me tell ya, I flattened it all right!  She immediately said, “OK, that was too much!” and praised my exploration of the extreme in the same breath.

Back to F-natural.  It seems to be in every flippin’ song!  Why can I hit it just fine in this one, and then feel like I’m reaching and straining in that one?  It’s the same note…

Fearless Leader says he really wants to cover this other song.  I really want to cover it, too!  The first chorus?  No problem.  The second chorus?  It feels higher…  The third chorus feels even higher still!  It turns out, the first and second choruses are the same.  The third is, in fact, a third higher.

And starts on F#.

The second one above middle C.

At the moment, it is THE highest note I have been asked to perform.